With the rapid advancements in the field of printing, consideration of newly developed printing techniques are being considered for use in the field of postage dispensing. Heretofore, postage dispensing apparatus, for the most part, have used mechanical components for the purpose of printing postage indicia upon mail pieces. In the recent past, electronic postage dispensing apparatus have been developed, but even these electronic devices relied upon mechanical printing components that were in communication with electronic accounting units. Needless to say, such postage dispensing devices are relatively expensive.
Many publications have discussed and suggested the use of dot matrix printers in postage dispensing apparatus. In fact, recent changes in postal regulations allow mailers to use ink jet printers for the printing of certain non-critical data on mail pieces. As a result, it appears to be a matter of time before postal regulations are changed to allow more extensive use of dot matrix printers. Of the contemporary printing techniques, the use of thermal printing for a postage dispensing device appears attractive and has been disclosed in a number of articles and patents. The advantages offered by thermal printing is that of low cost and reliability. In concurrently filed patent applications entitled "Postage Dispensing Apparatus Having a thermal Printer and Method of Using the same (E-157) and Postage Dispensing Device with Asynchronous Indicia Printing Operation (E-156)", both assigned to the assignee of the instant patent application, schemes are described for using thermal ribbons with pre-formed images thereon. Although these represent advanced concepts in the field of postage dispensing, they do not teach ways of customizing and readily altering the pre-formed images that are applied to a thermal ribbon.